7 ms·

Perhaps now that Google has taken steps to block websites that display these ads, Google should take steps to stop accepting these ads onto their network in the

Perhaps now that Google has taken steps to block websites that display these ads, Google should take steps to stop accepting these ads onto their network in the first place. Most of the time when I see those DOWNLOAD/PLAY buttons, they're hosted on doubleclick.

chillydawg 11y ago
Because this way they get to charge for the ad and then also not let their users get suckered. They win both ways.
- Pharaoh2 11y ago
  Google doesn't charge for ads, it charges for impressions. If you user doesn't seem it, google doesn't get paid. Get your facts straight.
Zarel 11y ago
I remember a few years ago AdSense was showing a lot of fake Download buttons (and users would complain about it). I haven't seen them recently, though, so I hope that means they've fixed that problem.
- mc808 11y ago
  I just checked and the download page on getpaint.net still has a deceptive "Start Download" AdSense ad. That site came to mind because, a few months ago, I tried to be charitable and disabled ad blocking for a few days. That was the site where I decided enough was enough and started blocking again.
  - cableshaft 11y ago
    I just went there and saw a fake start download button, but it was with the 'AdChoices' network, not AdSense. EDIT: I guess AdSense is involved with AdChoices somehow. My mistake.
    - cbr 11y ago
      Pretty sure it's an AdSense ad: http://imgur.com/OBy1PFR http://imgur.com/OBy1PFR The AdChoices icon is used by many ad networks, not just Google's, to indicate that there's per-user targeting happening. [1] But if you click on that "AdChoices" button and you get an AdSense help page. [1] http://www.youradchoices.com/faq.aspx http://www.youradchoices.com/faq.aspx
      - acqq 11y ago
        When I click the > I get https://support.google.com/adsense https://support.google.com/adsense . The link from the ad is to https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net I don't see how it can't be a Google-sold ad.
    - mc808 11y ago
      I'm not too familiar with AdSense vs. DoubleClick vs. AdChoices, but when I hover the ad it shows a link to DoubleClick, the little triangle icon points to an AdSense support page, and the JavaScript to load the ad comes from googlesyndication.com. From what I understand, that all points to it being an AdSense ad. I suspect the reason that kind of ad is allowed (despite being deceptive IMHO) is that it's not just a download link. It also indicates that it's an ad for a driver update site (which makes it even shadier to my eye, but probably not violating any policies).
  - sleepychu 11y ago
    You're not being charitable disabling your ad blocking. You're just perpetuating a system where egregious invasion of privacy is 'the deal' for using the internet. I understand that some sites might struggle for income without advertising but if they want me to view their ads they had better find some partners who don't stalk me across the web.
- tobltobs 11y ago
  They are still there. Now in green instead of blue.
- kalkin 11y ago
  Nope. We started experimenting with AdX ads a few days ago and immediately saw exactly these ads: https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Ad-Approval-Policy/When-will-AdWords-shutdown-the-quot-Download-quot-buttons-ad/td-p/249555# https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Ad-Approval-Policy... That post is from 2013. The answer to the question in the title is apparently "not for at least three years". I'll take Google's concern about deceptive ads seriously when they stop serving those ads themselves.
MattBearman 11y ago
I was going to say exactly the same thing. Blocking/warning about them at the browser level is a great move, especially as it will also work for ads not served by Google. But they should also be working to stop these ads getting published on their network as well.
- tarpherder 11y ago
  But that is a more direct threat to their revenue stream so of course not :).
raverbashing 11y ago
There should be an easy way to flag an ad for inappropriate behaviour (by the user seeing it)
- chriswarbo 11y ago
  How long would it take before fake "Flag this ad" buttons start appearing on ads?
  - Flimm 11y ago
    The little X button in the top right corner of Google display ads already performs this function, no?
    - kalkin 11y ago
      I tried to flag a deceptive "Start Download" ad of this kind by clicking on this button a few days ago (which appeared on a site I run, annoyingly). The form I was required to fill out needed me to say where the link in the ad took me. So I"m supposed to click on the link in an ad which is pretty plainly attempting to install some kind of malware, in order to be able to report it? I'm supposed to either be 100% confident there's no vulnerability in my browser, or set up some kind of VM to test with, just in order to report a single, obviously malicious ad?
      - infogulch 11y ago
        I just tried it on the getpaint.net site (mentioned elsewhere itt) and it only had an option box set with three options: inappropriate, repetitive, irrelevant. But you could just right click and copy the ad link. The link would point to the ad network (e.g. googleads.g.doubleclick.net/aclk), but it would be better than nothing. Also, many ads include a domain, sometimes in a tooltip, and usually just the tld, but again, better than nothing.
developer2 11y ago
I'm not at all against this move from Google - it is good sense. However, to play Devil's advocate, what are the odds this was pushed down by the MPAA/RIAA or similar? This policy more or less directly targets sites that offer free online streaming or torrent downloads of Movies/TV/Music. The sites that wind up with these deceptive ads are typically sites that provide copyrighted content to their users. Again, this is not a bad move. But I'm curious about the true motivations. If I were the MPAA, and trying to shut down the revenue stream of sites offering free streaming and torrents, this would be one of the ways to do it. That, or Google is simply sick of receiving takedown notices - and this is one method to take these sites out of their listings before even receiving the DMCA.
- zeven7 11y ago
  Google doesn't make any attempts to pander to the MPAA/RIAA anymore. http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-mpaas-attempt-to-revive-sopa.html http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-mpaas-att...
- tonylemesmer 11y ago
  Download button ads appear on websites providing useful utilities and in particular Minecraft content and add-ons. I'm having to educate my kids on what is and isn't a real download button. Its a pain in the arse. I would say it hasn't come from the MPAA or RIAA. These deceptive download buttons appear on a myriad of sites which are not related to streaming/torrenting.
- FussyZeus 11y ago
  Actually when I saw the headline my first thought was sourceforge. You expect these kinds of deep web ads when perusing sites you know damn well are "less than legal" but I've seen them on a number of websites I wouldn't normally expect to, sourceforge being the worst offender in my experience.
- witty_username 11y ago
  In my experience most free online streaming and torrent downloading websites have very small hard-to-find download buttons with a lot of fake "Download Now!" ads. So this would actually make torrenting easier.
derefr 11y ago
I'm not sure they need to. Google's approach here tackles the problem of these ads being created from an economic direction: if nobody is seeing these ads, they won't make any CPM money any more, so their creators will stop running them. That's a much more sensible approach than doing what you're suggesting—trying to catch specific instances of people doing something nefarious that makes them money. That just causes the people posting the ads to get more clever, such that it gets more and more costly to catch each instance. (That was helpful in the ReCAPTCHA case, since spammers were advancing computer vision techniques in the process. It's not a harnessable force in the general case.)
- kuschku 11y ago
  It’s an approach that has many casualties, though.
- ethbro 11y ago
  The point was made elsewhere, but I think you stated it most eloquently. Here's my question though: does it not benefit the user to enforce some minimum of deterrence through automated policing on the ad acceptance side? Yes, it's whack-a-mole, but so is SEO, and Google's continually tweaking that instead of giving up. Based on the current rudimentary techniques used by the advertisers (e.g. "DOWNLOAD!" buttons), even eliminating only such blatant examples would go a long way towards cleaning up deceptive ad's. And as you've noted... it's not like Google doesn't have access to advanced CV techniques and the computational infrastructure to run them...
  - mrtron 11y ago
    Google is trying quite hard to stop the download ads. The people running those ads are trying even harder. It has nothing to do with CV, it is not an engineering problem.
    - ethbro 11y ago
      > It has nothing to do with CV, it is not an engineering problem. Not sure what you mean by this, given that there's a human with eyeballs on the other end of the bad ad and a limited number of keywords to trick that human into undesirable actions (virus,error,infected,download,update,install). CV is exactly the solution you'd want to use for a first-pass categorization, given that's the pathway by which the ads communicate with users.
makomk 11y ago
It'll be interesting to see if they block people from visiting sites that use doubleclick for ads, or if this is just an excuse for blocking sites that use competing ad providers.
taoufix 11y ago
Admob too serves similar Ads: "Your phone is infected, click here to install Clean Master..."

chillydawg 11y ago

Because this way they get to charge for the ad and then also not let their users get suckered. They win both ways.

Pharaoh2 11y ago
Google doesn't charge for ads, it charges for impressions. If you user doesn't seem it, google doesn't get paid. Get your facts straight.

Zarel 11y ago

I remember a few years ago AdSense was showing a lot of fake Download buttons (and users would complain about it). I haven't seen them recently, though, so I hope that means they've fixed that problem.

mc808 11y ago
I just checked and the download page on getpaint.net still has a deceptive "Start Download" AdSense ad. That site came to mind because, a few months ago, I tried to be charitable and disabled ad blocking for a few days. That was the site where I decided enough was enough and started blocking again.
- cableshaft 11y ago
  I just went there and saw a fake start download button, but it was with the 'AdChoices' network, not AdSense. EDIT: I guess AdSense is involved with AdChoices somehow. My mistake.
  - cbr 11y ago
    Pretty sure it's an AdSense ad: http://imgur.com/OBy1PFR http://imgur.com/OBy1PFR The AdChoices icon is used by many ad networks, not just Google's, to indicate that there's per-user targeting happening. [1] But if you click on that "AdChoices" button and you get an AdSense help page. [1] http://www.youradchoices.com/faq.aspx http://www.youradchoices.com/faq.aspx
    - acqq 11y ago
      When I click the > I get https://support.google.com/adsense https://support.google.com/adsense . The link from the ad is to https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net I don't see how it can't be a Google-sold ad.
  - mc808 11y ago
    I'm not too familiar with AdSense vs. DoubleClick vs. AdChoices, but when I hover the ad it shows a link to DoubleClick, the little triangle icon points to an AdSense support page, and the JavaScript to load the ad comes from googlesyndication.com. From what I understand, that all points to it being an AdSense ad. I suspect the reason that kind of ad is allowed (despite being deceptive IMHO) is that it's not just a download link. It also indicates that it's an ad for a driver update site (which makes it even shadier to my eye, but probably not violating any policies).
- sleepychu 11y ago
  You're not being charitable disabling your ad blocking. You're just perpetuating a system where egregious invasion of privacy is 'the deal' for using the internet. I understand that some sites might struggle for income without advertising but if they want me to view their ads they had better find some partners who don't stalk me across the web.
tobltobs 11y ago
They are still there. Now in green instead of blue.
kalkin 11y ago
Nope. We started experimenting with AdX ads a few days ago and immediately saw exactly these ads: https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Ad-Approval-Policy/When-will-AdWords-shutdown-the-quot-Download-quot-buttons-ad/td-p/249555# https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Ad-Approval-Policy... That post is from 2013. The answer to the question in the title is apparently "not for at least three years". I'll take Google's concern about deceptive ads seriously when they stop serving those ads themselves.

MattBearman 11y ago

I was going to say exactly the same thing. Blocking/warning about them at the browser level is a great move, especially as it will also work for ads not served by Google. But they should also be working to stop these ads getting published on their network as well.

tarpherder 11y ago
But that is a more direct threat to their revenue stream so of course not :).

raverbashing 11y ago

There should be an easy way to flag an ad for inappropriate behaviour (by the user seeing it)

chriswarbo 11y ago
How long would it take before fake "Flag this ad" buttons start appearing on ads?
- Flimm 11y ago
  The little X button in the top right corner of Google display ads already performs this function, no?
  - kalkin 11y ago
    I tried to flag a deceptive "Start Download" ad of this kind by clicking on this button a few days ago (which appeared on a site I run, annoyingly). The form I was required to fill out needed me to say where the link in the ad took me. So I"m supposed to click on the link in an ad which is pretty plainly attempting to install some kind of malware, in order to be able to report it? I'm supposed to either be 100% confident there's no vulnerability in my browser, or set up some kind of VM to test with, just in order to report a single, obviously malicious ad?
    - infogulch 11y ago
      I just tried it on the getpaint.net site (mentioned elsewhere itt) and it only had an option box set with three options: inappropriate, repetitive, irrelevant. But you could just right click and copy the ad link. The link would point to the ad network (e.g. googleads.g.doubleclick.net/aclk), but it would be better than nothing. Also, many ads include a domain, sometimes in a tooltip, and usually just the tld, but again, better than nothing.

developer2 11y ago

I'm not at all against this move from Google - it is good sense. However, to play Devil's advocate, what are the odds this was pushed down by the MPAA/RIAA or similar? This policy more or less directly targets sites that offer free online streaming or torrent downloads of Movies/TV/Music. The sites that wind up with these deceptive ads are typically sites that provide copyrighted content to their users. Again, this is not a bad move. But I'm curious about the true motivations. If I were the MPAA, and trying to shut down the revenue stream of sites offering free streaming and torrents, this would be one of the ways to do it. That, or Google is simply sick of receiving takedown notices - and this is one method to take these sites out of their listings before even receiving the DMCA.

zeven7 11y ago
Google doesn't make any attempts to pander to the MPAA/RIAA anymore. http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-mpaas-attempt-to-revive-sopa.html http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-mpaas-att...
tonylemesmer 11y ago
Download button ads appear on websites providing useful utilities and in particular Minecraft content and add-ons. I'm having to educate my kids on what is and isn't a real download button. Its a pain in the arse. I would say it hasn't come from the MPAA or RIAA. These deceptive download buttons appear on a myriad of sites which are not related to streaming/torrenting.
FussyZeus 11y ago
Actually when I saw the headline my first thought was sourceforge. You expect these kinds of deep web ads when perusing sites you know damn well are "less than legal" but I've seen them on a number of websites I wouldn't normally expect to, sourceforge being the worst offender in my experience.
witty_username 11y ago
In my experience most free online streaming and torrent downloading websites have very small hard-to-find download buttons with a lot of fake "Download Now!" ads. So this would actually make torrenting easier.

derefr 11y ago

I'm not sure they need to. Google's approach here tackles the problem of these ads being created from an economic direction: if nobody is seeing these ads, they won't make any CPM money any more, so their creators will stop running them. That's a much more sensible approach than doing what you're suggesting—trying to catch specific instances of people doing something nefarious that makes them money. That just causes the people posting the ads to get more clever, such that it gets more and more costly to catch each instance. (That was helpful in the ReCAPTCHA case, since spammers were advancing computer vision techniques in the process. It's not a harnessable force in the general case.)

kuschku 11y ago
It’s an approach that has many casualties, though.
ethbro 11y ago
The point was made elsewhere, but I think you stated it most eloquently. Here's my question though: does it not benefit the user to enforce some minimum of deterrence through automated policing on the ad acceptance side? Yes, it's whack-a-mole, but so is SEO, and Google's continually tweaking that instead of giving up. Based on the current rudimentary techniques used by the advertisers (e.g. "DOWNLOAD!" buttons), even eliminating only such blatant examples would go a long way towards cleaning up deceptive ad's. And as you've noted... it's not like Google doesn't have access to advanced CV techniques and the computational infrastructure to run them...
- mrtron 11y ago
  Google is trying quite hard to stop the download ads. The people running those ads are trying even harder. It has nothing to do with CV, it is not an engineering problem.
  - ethbro 11y ago
    > It has nothing to do with CV, it is not an engineering problem. Not sure what you mean by this, given that there's a human with eyeballs on the other end of the bad ad and a limited number of keywords to trick that human into undesirable actions (virus,error,infected,download,update,install). CV is exactly the solution you'd want to use for a first-pass categorization, given that's the pathway by which the ads communicate with users.

makomk 11y ago

It'll be interesting to see if they block people from visiting sites that use doubleclick for ads, or if this is just an excuse for blocking sites that use competing ad providers.

taoufix 11y ago

Admob too serves similar Ads: "Your phone is infected, click here to install Clean Master..."